


and the silence is ringing

by leov66



Series: atla au with no name (yet) [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Blood and Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Heavy Angst, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nightmares, Torture, Trauma, but theres comfort at the end so!!, e rated bc this shit is bad, like its not implied. its there, mentions of depression, ohh boy thats the darkest one so far, this is really fucked up and violent so keep that in mind please
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 11:37:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leov66/pseuds/leov66
Summary: "Fire isn't always death. Sometimes, it's warmth, it's love, it's a heartbeat."in which Viktor has really bad nightmares and is reminded of the past and Yuuri is there for him.





	and the silence is ringing

**Author's Note:**

> TW VIOLENCE. LIKE, REALLY BAD VIOLENCE. PLEASE, IF YOURE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH THIS, DON'T READ THIS!!!

It had certainly been a long time since Viktor had nightmares. He was so happy now, living with the man he loved, at peace with himself. And yet there he was, wide awake in the middle of the night, shivering despite the warm air around him. He had left their bed and decided to sit by the shore, hoping that playing with the waves would help him calm down. Everything felt cold and detached, as if he wasn't in his own body anymore, the only real thing being water and the sounds it made under his command. His eyes were stuck on one point and he wasn't even aware of it. He kept thinking about his dream, going through it again and again and again-

It started good, good and peaceful and calm. He was at the South Pole again, only a few years old, a boy curled up in furs and his mother's arms, warm and safe. It was one of his first memories, a soft and distant one yet one he was fond of. He watched himself grow up, watched his brother grow from the little bundle he was handed one day, watched his mother's hair thin and his father's hands wrinkle up. They were a happy family. They laughed by the fire, ate humble but warm meals, laughed and cried together. His parents taught him the basics of bending, insisting that he learn on his own, that he show them just how much he can do, despite it being very little. They were proud of him and they would have been proud of Yura, too, had they been there when he mastered the first attack at only six years. A few weeks before Viktor left.

Three years after their parents left and died.

 

"Why do you have to leave," a ten-year-old Viktor whispered against his mother's silver hair. "Can't you and Papa stay and the others go?"

"I wish that were so, my sweet boy. We have to go. Remember what we told you about duty and tradition? About our great-great-great grandfathers and grandmothers that fought for our tribe so that we could be free and at peace?"

 

He nodded, his eyes threatening to fill with tears again despite his attempts to remain calm.

 

"Now it's Papa's and my turn to fight for it. That's our duty as benders and warriors, dear."

"But...Yura and I need you here. With us."

 

He tried to get them to stay many times, with tears and anger and silence and screams. But he didn't and just held Yuri close to himself, standing by their grandfather and watching their parents leave to fight in a war he didn't understand. He did as he promised to Mama, taking care of both Yuri and himself and practising his bending. He grew his hair, hoping it'd be as beautiful as hers. He made a few friends but they didn't understand him the way his father would. He kissed a girl, once, but she was nothing like his mother.

They never came back and the elders knew that they wouldn't. They didn't tell the children, because why would they want to break their hearts? Viktor was one of the oldest and he remembered all the looks on the little ones' faces as they stared at the coast longingly, waiting and waiting until they, too, realised there was nothing to wait for.

He only found out years later how they died. In prison, begging for water, spat on and laughed at. Helpless. In cages, like _fucking animals_ , kept a few feet above the ground so they wouldn't try to bend. One woman escaped and she wrote Yakov a detailed letter full of hate and bitterness. Viktor found it by accident and read it three times. There was a detailed instruction of a technique so vile and wrong he was forced to promise never to use. She wrote about the ten years they spent there, the name of every single bender, the things that were done to them, the names they called out in their sleep. Viktor felt sick to his stomach. After reading the description of the technique enough times to be able to repeat it in his sleep he put the letter where he found it and left. Back in his home, he remembered throwing up a few times, sobbing for hours upon hours, feeling so wrong that something inside him twisted painfully every time he thought of it.

 

Aleksandra. One of the strongest benders. They cut her hair and shaved her head and hurt her hands until they were a bloody mess. Two children, Viktor and Yuri.

Pyotr. One of the strongest benders and warriors. They beat him until he couldn't stand or sit, made him watch them hurt Aleksandra's hands and laughed when he cried. Two children, Viktor and Yuri.

 

He never told his brother, because why would he break his heart?

He cut his hair and watched it burn. How ironic.

He couldn't bend at all for a month.

 

In his dreams, he saw what they did to his parents. His graceful mother, kind and beautiful. His loving father, tender and strong. Sometimes through their eyes and sometimes through _their_ eyes. That time, however, he was standing in the corner, strong arms around him and a hand on his chin, forcing him to look at the scene.

His mother was pale, dehydrated and malnourished but at that point she probably wasn't even aware. Her hair, her beautiful hair, her long, silver hair, was on the dirty ground, cut messily, dull and lifeless. A guard was shaving her head completely, not minding the blood dripping on her clothing, or rather, what was left of it. They were laughing and she was silent. Viktor was screaming and crying. He begged her to do something, to bend her way out, to escape, to beat them up, but she didn't. Her hands were tied up and the room was the driest place there could be. There was no water to bend. Minutes passed like hours. Then they beat her again and again, kicked her in the stomach and on the back and stepped on her hands and that was where she cried out. So they kept on doing that. Day after day. Until her throat went raw. Until there was nothing more to torture.

His father was weak. He never thought he'd see him like that until he did. His once strong body was nothing but a weak bag of bones and organs. He stayed quiet throughout the whole ordeal, bruises forming on his skin and his bones breaking one after another. They wanted to break him and that wasn't enough. So they showed him the shadow of his wife. They showed him her head, forced him to throw her hair in the fire, to watch it burn. They made him look as they tortured her and that was enough. Viktor cried and screamed with him, begged them to stop alongside his father. But he wasn't there. He was alive and well.

He was alive and well, bending and bending and thinking how _fun_ it was. Finding lovers and friends, smiling and laughing. Making love and braiding his hair. Alive and well.

It filled him with guilt, but it also filled him with bitterness and anger. He had grown to hate fire, to despise it with every fiber of his being. Fire and firebenders, too. He forced Yakov to give him the name of the man that was responsible for his parents' interrogation and kept it in his heart for all those years. He remembered every crack of his delicate mother's bones, every scream that left his strong father's throat. He made sure his hair was as short as possible, never comfortable with its soft feeling again. He begun to deslike compliments on his eyes, his blue, blue eyes just like the sea, just like his mother's. He refused to get involved in anything dyplomatic, so what if the war was over? A peace and wouldn't bring them back. An apology wouldn't make them suffer less.

 

That dream forced him back into those old days, the ones where he'd just sit and watch the world go on as if he wasn't _fucking shattered_. The darkness in his heart would get the best of him and he would feel angry and empty and worthless.

 

"Vitya?"

 

There was somebody by his side now, close enough for Viktor to feel their warmth but not touching him. But then again, he felt cold to begin with. Yuuri.

 

"Can I help you in any way?"

 

He shook his head, the simple movement so hard for his heavy, heavy body. They just sat like that for some time, he couldn't tell how long. He thought of his parents again, how cold they must have been, how they must have felt so far away from water, how alone they felt despite being close to each other. The last thing he understood. That moment, he was nowhere near Yuuri.

 

"They tortured them. They cut her hair, they broke her hands, they beat him, they put them in cages, they burnt them-"

 

They burnt them. They set fire to their clothes and laughed as they tried to rip them off. They burnt marks onto their bodies. They burnt their feet. They burnt their hair. They burnt them until they lost consciousness. They burnt the dying ones just to make them suffer more.

He was crying again, the waves in front of him rising higher and lover with every breath he took. Any plant and animal within a few feet was dried out and empty, just like them, just like his parents and their friends and people who watched him grow up and gave his mother medicine when he was sick and healed his knee when he tripped over a toy and scratched it. He was sobbing and his tears were ones they couldn't cry because there was no more water inside them anymore.

There were hands in his hands. They were hot and Viktor's were pure ice. They stayed like that for a while, Viktor sobbing his eyes and heart out yet again and Yuuri watching him break, holding his hands.

 

"Firebenders killed every single bender and warrior of my tribe. They made twenty-three children orphans, including me and my brother. Only one woman survived and she wrote Yakov a letter. I read the wole thing. I remember it word by word. Those weren't people, those were monsters." His voice was coarse and quiet and cold.

"I...I'm so sorry for your loss, love." Yuuri's voice was anything but cold, the soothing, warm honey over the ice.

"I wanted to hate you at first. For being one of them. But you weren't like them."

"Fire isn't always death. Sometimes, it's warmth, it's love, it's a heartbeat." He pressed their hands against his warm chest, warm as always. "You're not alone and you'll never be alone again."

 

He wished he could believe it at that moment. He knew that he would, one day. Maybe he'd even tell his brother what really happened.

 

"Could you...cut my hair in the morning? It's getting too long again."

"Of course, dearest."

"I wish they could meet you. They'd love you."

 

With little things, they pulled the little pieces of him back together one by one. Of course, there were times like that, where he'd break and they'd have to start all over again, but they were getting there day by day. Yuuri's love filled him from the inside, his warm hands, a warmer smile and the warmest words. He accepted him for who he truly was, not the mask he was so used to wearing. He held him for as long as he needed to be held, wept alongside him and whispered sweet words into his ears.

Slowly, their little house became a home, their plants began to grow, the sweet sound of waves lulled them both to sleep and the warmth of their fireplace put Viktor at ease.

**Author's Note:**

> 1) this started out as a simple hurt/comfort but ended up Like This im so sorry
> 
> 2) yes, viktor and yuri are brothers in this one. idk im weirdly drawn to this idea
> 
> 3) hmu on my tumblr [bikiforov](https://bikiforov.tumblr.com)
> 
> 4) yuuri's a firebender and viktor's a waterbender but youve prob realised
> 
> 5) work title from troye sivan's 'touch'
> 
> 6) if you dont know what atla is and have no idea about the plot: there was a war between the four nations - the fire nation, the water tribe, the earth kingdom and the air nomads. the fire nation was the antagonist and they wiped out all of the south pole (the water one yknow)'s benders. so that part is canon. i have no idea who the avatar is idk man if youve got an idea tell me on my tumblr or in the comments idk


End file.
